


Apples and Oranges

by LadyShadowphyre



Series: Fruit Salad [1]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (2012), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/M, Gen, Genetics is a difficult field, He's pretty wary of Clint too, Mentions of miscarriage, Surrogacy, Tony Stark Has Secrets, Tony doesn't trust Natasha, family is what you make it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-27
Updated: 2013-01-27
Packaged: 2017-11-27 06:00:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/658726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyShadowphyre/pseuds/LadyShadowphyre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As far as the rest of the world is concerned, Tony Stark and Darcy Lewis are not related. As far as SHIELD is concerned, they're half-siblings who didn't know about each other. The truth is, as usual, quite a bit more complicated than that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Apples and Oranges

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BooksMcG](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BooksMcG/gifts).



> Proof that yes, I did do the research, even for something that was originally supposed to be just a lighthearted one-off to fill a prompt until people started badgering me and made me chase the bunny down when it got scared. ~just a little annoyed by this~ Now maybe I can get the next chapters of "Only Different in the Details" done, as I'm several chapters behind where I should be.

**D** ARCY ABIGALE LEWIS HADN'T BEEN AT ALL SURE WHAT TO THINK WHEN, just as her training group was due to start the wall-climbing portion of the PT test, she'd been pulled out of training and told to meet Special Agent Coulson in debriefing room six on the third floor. From the moment she walked into the debriefing room to see Coulson sitting between Clint and Natasha and across from _Tony Stark_ and _Pepper Potts_ , her life became just a little more surreal. She'd known she was adopted, of course - her parents were candid enough about it, but hadn't had any information on her birth parents to share with her - but she could have done without learning from SHIELD that Howard Stark had apparently gotten busy with her birth mother just a couple short years before the car accident that killed the elder Starks and left the younger Stark an orphan.

Except there was a look in Stark's - Tony's? - eyes that said there was more to the story than he was telling, and a hard glint whenever he looked at Natasha that was even more telling. Darcy had leaned into Clint and let the man she was now learning was her older brother draw her into talking while she tried not to think. When Coulson announced they were done and even cleared her to skip the wall-climbing to go to lunch, she couldn't resist the fist-pump, or dragging Clint along with her.

Which was, she supposed, how she found herself seated next to Clint at a round table in a curtained alcove of a five star restaurant with an unpronounceable name, still in her workout clothes, and watching as Tony casually pulled a small black box out of his suit jacket and flipped a switch that turned a tiny light on the side blinking yellow before it settled into a steady green.

"Portable white noise generator," he explained, setting it in the middle of the table. "Great for business meetings and superspy talk in public. So long as nobody yells, no sound within a three foot radius will be intelligible to any electronic surveillance or recording devices."

"Handy," Darcy said faintly, staring at the box for a long moment before lifting her gaze to Tony's. "Now what?"

"Now," Tony said, letting out a breath, "I offer you an apology for some of the shit I said back in that meeting. It really is impossible for you to be my daughter, but I didn't have to be so nasty referring to your birth mother."

She frowned slightly, running back through the conversation. "Siblings..." she murmured, glancing at Pepper. "You said siblings. But half siblings statistically have only about a twenty-five percent genetic match."

"Statistics aren't immutable," Pepper said gently. "But in this case, it's... complicated." She glanced at Tony, who made a face and looked at Clint.

"No reporting this back to SHIELD," he said firmly. "It's not going to compromise National Security and it's none of their business. You're only hearing it because Darcy wants you here, got it?"

"Lips're sealed," Clint said, making a zipping motion across his mouth.

"Good," Tony leaned back in his seat and cast his eyes upwards. "So, during World War II, Dad got involved in some pretty dangerous experiments with radiation for the military. He was as careful as he knew to be, of course, but accidents happen sometimes, and the result was that by the time he met and married Mom - Maria Carbonell - he was firing seventy-five hundred to one in blanks, reproductive-wise. It's why I was conceived so late in their lives."

"Damn," Darcy whistled. "Talk about luck of the draw."

"No kidding," Tony agreed. "And then there was Mom. She wasn't infertile, but she was... not strong, health-wise. Having me nearly killed her the first time, and she had two more miscarriages in the ten years after that before they started looking into other options. This is all stuff I learned well after the fact when I found the papers of Dad's that he hid from Stane--" He broke off and closed his eyes. Pepper leaned into him and rested one hand on his clenching fist until he opened his eyes again and turned his hand over beneath hers.

"So," Clint said slowly when Darcy sat silent, "Hunter wasn't a mistress but a... surrogate?"

"Yes and no," Tony said with a grimace. "She was the sister of a consulting geneticist Dad talked to about the possibility of surrogacy if they could winnow out a viable sperm cell from him to use on one of Mom's eggs. Ms Hunter volunteered to help keep things quiet, and Dad was desperate enough to give it a try. As such, with Mom's health steadily declining, Dad did most of the commuting to check on her, keeping up to date on the progress of her pregnancy... and, well, I'm sure Dad did his best to stay faithful to Mom, but he sure as hell wasn't a saint."

"Pregnancy libido," Darcy said wisely, feeling just a little sick. "One of my roomies in college got knocked up from a party and she wore out her vibrator more during the second and third trimesters than she had before then."

"Darce," Clint said, grimacing, and she flashed him a wide-eyed look above a grin tinged with hysteria.

"Hey, it's probably good we find out what you'd be in for if we ever get that far," she quipped. Clint looked a little like he'd swallowed something wrong. From across the table, Pepper cleared her throat.

"By the time you were born, reports indicate that things were... delicate in the Stark household," she said carefully. "Tony was already at MIT, and Maria Stark was..."

"Bedridden," Tony supplied, grimacing. "And Dad was drinking more and more, guilt and anger and who knows what else he must've been feeling, and there was Stane, playing at being the father figure to me Dad wasn't, or wasn't being allowed to be, and all the while fostering that steady burn of distrust between us. He witnessed the will change, too, where Dad left a pretty hefty sum to you and Ms Hunter for your care and education since he thought he and Mom were getting too old to be suitable parents of a newborn."

"But... how... Natasha said there was a restraining order?" Darcy asked, biting her lip.

"Stane again," Pepper said, a look of disgust flitting across her face. "The will naming you and your birth mother as beneficiaries never saw the light of day. After everything he's done to Tony, I can only guess that he thought one Stark heir, the one everyone already knew about, would be easier to control."

"There aren't any other records about it beyond a claim filed for custody of me by Eloise Hunter just after the crash that was summarily denied followed by the enacting of the restraining order," Tony continued quietly, looking grim. "Nothing, not even a full copy of your birth certificate."

"So you never would've known I was alive if SHIELD hadn't started profiling my blood hunting for relatives," Darcy surmised. She grimaced and shifted, which prompted Clint to drop one hand to the back of her neck and begin massaging the tense muscles. "This is... a lot to take in. Like a soap opera or something." She glanced at Tony. "And you're taking this remarkably well."

"To be honest, I was expecting something like this to happen eventually," Tony said with a grimace. "Statistics are based on averages, and Starks tend to bust way past average."

"I'm not changing my name," Darcy said abruptly, making a face. "Deborah and Michael Lewis have been damn good parents to me, and the media would start a shit storm _none_ of us need."

"No family reunions to worry about, since as far as the Stark side goes, we're it," Tony added. Pepper shot him a look before smiling at Darcy.

"We do hope we can all remain... in touch?" she said delicately. Darcy snorted.

"No offense meant, Miss Potts," she began.

"Pepper," the other woman broke in.

"Pepper," Darcy conceded. "But I just found out that not only do I have a brother, but my brother is a bonafide power-armour wearing _superhero_ and we both work for the same kickass super secret government agency." She shook her head in bemusement. "And I thought finding out Jane's crazy hot homeless guy was an alien prince would always top my weird-o-meter."

"That does sound like a pretty high bar," Tony said with a smirk.

"Wait until your clearance goes up a few grades," Clint told her with a wink.

"You've got something to top Puento Antiguo?" Darcy asked. Clint glanced briefly at Pepper and Tony, then shrugged slightly and looked back at Darcy.

"You haven't heard about Budapest yet," he said.

"Sounds like prime lunch conversation!" Darcy said brightly, and leaned into Clint's side as Pepper leaned out of the curtain to signal a waiter. All in all, as far as surprise relatives, she could've done worse.


End file.
